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Leah Chase

_**Editor's note:** The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from_ [The Dooky Chase Cookbook](http://www.ecookbooks.com/products.html?affiliateID=16283&item=02908) _by Leah Chase and are part of our story on Mardi Gras. Chase also shared some helpful tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page._
I remember going to Mardi Gras parades and seeing fried chicken being sold on the street. There really wasn't any Mardi Gras in Madisonville — everybody left for New Orleans in hay trucks. Sometimes I could go, but usually my father wouldn't let us miss school.
We would go to see the Zulu parade, which was on Claiborne Avenue from Canal Street to St. Bernard Avenue. Claiborne was lined with beautiful oaks then. Some of the people held open houses on Claiborne, for their friends. The street was full of booths, with blacks selling fried chicken, fried fish, and red beans. My favorite thing about Mardi Gras was that we could eat in the street. My father never even let us eat candy outside normally.
I also thought it was so fun to dress in costume. But a lot of Creole ladies used the occasion to bring out their first spring suit. They would wear violet corsages, and walk with canes with a celluloid feathered doll on top. I thought it was a shame to get all fancy on Mardi Gras, instead of playing like the other maskers.
The Zulu parade mocked the white parades. The "African King" would wear a huge crystal doorknob as a ring. They were very funny. They wandered all over, passing households that paid them to go that way. Now Mardi Gras is so big that organized routes need to be followed. That's good to impose some kind of order where so many people are involved.
One group put on a Mardi Gras Breakfast Dance that was very fancy. The invited guests — usually teachers and professionals — would go in hats and gloves. I got invited eventually and wasn't so impressed. I was just happy to be watching the parade, finally able to eat some fried chicken in the street.

_**Editor's note:** The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from_ [The Dooky Chase Cookbook](http://www.ecookbooks.com/products.html?affiliateID=16283&item=02908) _by Leah Chase and are part of our story on Mardi Gras._

_**Editor's note:** The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from_ [The Dooky Chase Cookbook](http://www.ecookbooks.com/products.html?affiliateID=16283&item=02908) _by Leah Chase and are part of our story on Mardi Gras. Chase also shared some helpful tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page._
In Madisonville, where I grew up, we would use smoked ham to add flavor to our red beans. In New Orleans, they would use pickled meat. Pickling of pork was done in the Creole community. Pickled ribs with potato salad were popular. The meat was pickled in a brine, more or less, along with seasonings. There is a market in New Orleans that still makes pickled meat, in just this way. They might also use some kind of vinegar. In this red beans recipe, I stick with the smoked meats, just like in the country.

_**Editor's note:** The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from_ [The Dooky Chase Cookbook](http://www.ecookbooks.com/products.html?affiliateID=16283&item=02908) _by Leah Chase and are part of our story on Mardi Gras._

_**Editor's note:** The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from_ [The Dooky Chase Cookbook](http://www.ecookbooks.com/products.html?affiliateID=16283&item=02908) _by Leah Chase and are part of our story on Mardi Gras._
When I finished high school, and before I came to work in the laundry in New Orleans, I worked for a lady in Madisonville who had a boardinghouse. The place had only men — I always seem to be in places where there are only men — who worked at the shipyard and boarded at her place. They would come home at noon and we would have to cook lunch. She taught me how to cook a few things. There was another black girl working there so we used to laugh together because this woman cooked so different. She used to cook string beans and tell us that we needed to make a roux for these string beans. We would laugh and laugh.
We cooked on this great big wood stove. When we did make a roux, we would take the lid off of the stove to make it in a hurry over the open fire. Many times we burned the roux and would have to pour it in the fire.
One of the things I learned there was how to make a potato salad. The lady didn't put mayonnaise in — she used chicken fat. She raised her own chickens until they were six weeks old and then we killed them. We'd have to clean them and fry them. To make it easier, though, this recipe uses mayonnaise!